Frosted Jam Cake Has Been A Christmas Tradition For Generations

LYLES, TENN. — From the road, which looks like any nice residential street in a small mid-South town, all you see is an American flag flying at the top of its pole. A long driveway leads toward the flag, past a well-tended lawn and modern home, through a yard populated by half a dozen snoring bird dogs. At the end of the path, set low on a woodsy slope overlooking a slow-moving creek, is a log cabin known as the Silver Leaf 18l5 Country Inn.

The log cabin inn is a double-winged structure with a dog trot and limestone fireplaces. Constructed of oak, yellow poplar and chestnut logs with dovetail notches, its rooms are a cheerful mix of rustic, rough materials, dainty-pattern wallpaper and authentic antiques. Tables are set with quality cloth napery and lighted by flickering candles.

The 171-year-old house, which at one time was a moonshine still, was moved log by log to its present location by Norma and Johnny Crow, who made the restoration a three-year family project. Its name comes from the silver leaf poplar trees on the family farm.

Although it is a small cabin, it has three bed-and-breakfast guest rooms, often occupied by vacationers who come to take advantage of the trout fishing in nearby rivers. On the other hand, if your idea of a great weekend is doing nothing, there is no better place to do it than on the inn's porch swing, from which you can watch the dogs snooze or an occasional deer chew its way through the lush woods.

At Christmas, the Crows go all out to make the Silver Leaf a special place. Live trees in every dining room are festooned with handmade decorations, and guest rooms come alive with poinsettias and holly wreaths. Garlands of fruit, nuts and pine cones hang everywhere. The fireplaces are set ablaze, and guests munch peanuts, pitching hulls into the flames and sipping hot mulled cider. Groups of people reserve tables at the inn long in advance to have Norma Crow's Christmas dinner of roast pork loin and all the fixings, with jam cake and boiled custard for dessert.

Other times of the year, the Silver Leaf's weekend-only menu is the best kind of from-scratch Tennessee cooking: Dinners of skillet-fried chicken and cream gravy, country ham with redeye gravy, from-the-garden vegetables, buttermilk biscuits with homemade jams.

When we visited the Silver Leaf, we brought home several jars of Norma's jam; and that which didn't get spread on biscuits was used to make this scrumptious spicy-sweet cake, based on a recipe handed down by Johnny's mother. Mrs. Crow made the cake every Christmas and decorated the top with pecans.

FROSTED JAM CAKE

1 cup butter, softened

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

2 cups jam (blackberry is recommended)

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons ground allspice

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup seedless raisins

2/3 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Grease and flour three 9-inch cake pans.

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and jam.

Sift dry ingredients together.

Add to creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk, beating well after each addition. Stir in raisins and nuts.

Pour into prepared cake pans.

Bake 40 minutes, or until cakes test done. Cool on racks, and when room temperature, spread with warm frosting.